History
At Jesse Gray, we strive to engage pupils with a relevant, exciting and challenging History curriculum which inspires curiosity and is appropriate for preparing them for an adult life in the 21st century. Through the design of our curriculum, the pupils will learn to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as the challenges of their time.
History at Jesse Gray is facilitated through pupils pursuing a key question led enquiry approach, which encourages them to take increasing responsibility for their learning, think independently and achieve challenging subject outcomes. Therefore, we seek to encourage pupils to learn their History through big question led enquiries about significant events, people and change for example; just ask our year 1’s what it takes to be a great explorer, or our Year 3’s how artefacts help them understand the lives of Iron age Britons, and our year 5’s if we can really call Nottingham castle a castle! Throughout the sequence of lessons, children are provided with a variety of learning activities that are used regularly, including observation, enquiry, investigation, games, drama, and critical thinking, as well as opportunities to work individually, in pairs and in groups.
Within the EYFS an awareness of the concepts, vocabulary and key terms of History is encouraged through planned purposeful play and through a mix of adult led and child-initiated activity. In Key Stage 1 and 2 each year group undertakes three half termly enquiries in History and these are outlined in the History progression map. A history portfolio is maintained for each enquiry which includes evidence of pupil’s achievement in each investigation and is used for moderation purposes and to monitor and evaluate that anticipated pupil progress in History is occurring as planned.
Ensuring differentiation is a fundamental and core element of inclusion. As such, at Jesse Gray we plan and resource our learning to enable all pupils to make good and sustained progress in History including those with special educational needs. In our differentiation planning, we take due regard of factors such as classroom organisation, learning materials, the learning environment by using Bloom’s Taxonomy and Challenge by Choice.
By carefully designing meaningful links between History and Spiritual, Moral Social and Cultural Development (SMSC), this helps to build a sense of identity and belonging on a personal, cultural, national and global level as learners come to appreciate the diversity of human experience and consequently understand more about themselves and as members of society.
History forms an integral and statutory element of a pupil’s entitlement to learning and at Jesse Gray we ensure that all pupils can engage with historical learning and develop as young historians. Mutual respect and the fostering of empathy and community understanding at local, regional, national and global scales lies at the heart of the study of History and at our school we model this in terms of the inclusive nature of the learning and teaching we provide.